CHAPTER ELEVEN
“This place is beautiful,” Talia said, glancing around the restaurant from where she sat across from him in the booth. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before.”
Lennox sipped his water, taking in the terra-cotta tile floor, metal sculptures, colorful flowers, folk art, and woven tapestries. It was beautiful.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Talia said softly as she picked up her menu a few moments later. “Is everything okay?”
He gave himself a mental shake and looked up from his menu—the one he’d been pretending to be reading. Across the table from him, Talia was regarding him curiously. She was wearing an alluring off-the-shoulder flower-print sundress as well as a little more make-up than she usually did. To him, she looked like a goddess come to life.
“Sorry,” he said, giving her an apologetic smile. “I had a long day, and I needed a minute to get my head right.”
He realized then that he hadn’t said much on the drive to the restaurant either. Thankfully, Talia had taken care of the conversation, filling him in on her day with Maria. Considering this might be his only chance to impress Talia, he needed to get his crap together. He was in a beautiful restaurant with a gorgeous woman. He should be focusing on that.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, offering him a smile in return. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”
His first instinct was to tell her that he was good and change the subject. But wasn’t talking about their day over dinner what couples were supposed to do? While there wasn’t a lot he could discuss when it came to his job, this he could.
“There was some tension today between a few of the SEALs in one of our sister platoons, and it put this weird vibe over the whole day.”
She gave him a worried look. “They didn’t get into a physical fight, did they?”
“No, nothing like that.” He took a second to skim the menu. From steak and shrimp tacos to three kinds of tamales, everything sounded delicious. “Though it probably would have been better if they’d just thrown a few punches and gotten it over with.”
Talia frowned. “Seriously?”
He gave her a shrug. “It’s a guy thing.”
She didn’t look convinced.
“Anyway,” he continued, “the SEALs in one of our sister platoons were offered a chance to be part of a special training program. It’s so black ops that they didn’t even tell the guys what they were volunteering for and won’t know until they get to the training location. The cutoff list for the program came in this morning with only four guys getting picked. The rest of the platoon didn’t take it very well and from the looks of things, it’s going to ruin more than a few friendships.”
Talia seemed like she was about to say something, but their server chose that moment to show up to take their orders. Lennox let her order first. Because he was a gentleman and also because he hadn’t made up his mind yet. He liked the sound of the fire-roasted chicken tortilla soup she started with but ordered the chicken asado burrito with pico de gallo and corn salad. To go with her soup, Talia got a soft grilled chicken taco with avocado.
“And to drink?” the waiter asked with a smile. “Our twenty-one-ounce margaritas, made with one-hundred-percent blue agave tequila, is served in a special logo glass you can take home with you.”
Even though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer, Lennox lifted a brow in Talia’s direction.
She shook her head with a laugh. “Maria made me promise to come home early enough to read to her before bed. I don’t think I could read a word after drinking a twenty-one-ounce margarita.”
Reading a children’s book after having a gigantic margarita like that might be kinda fun , Lennox thought, but agreed it probably wouldn’t be a good example for Maria. In the end, he decided on a Modelo while Talia asked for a glass of white wine.
“I’m confused,” Talia said after their server left. “If all the SEALs in this other platoon volunteered, they must have known that only some of them might get selected, right?”
Lennox nodded.
“Okay. Then shouldn’t they be congratulating their Teammates? If they want to be mad at anyone, they should be mad at the people who decided who did and didn’t get picked. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense.”
He couldn’t help chuckling. “No, it doesn’t. But they sold this training program as a way to elevate yourself above your teammates—to be the best of the best and all that. By the time they announced the selections, the whole thing had taken on a decidedly competitive tone. The ones who didn’t make the cut are pissed since they know that the guys who did are probably going to be promoted faster since headquarters—or whoever is behind this training—has decided they don’t measure up. That puts a rift between guys, even those who used to be friends.”
Talia waited until their server had placed their drinks in front of them then left before answering. “That’s so messed up.” She regarded him curiously. “Is it always like that in the SEALs?”
He took a sip of his beer. “Like what?”
“So…adversarial?”
Lennox opened his mouth then closed it again, allowing his mind to process the word. He’d never thought about it like that before.
“Being a SEAL is synonymous with competition,” he said slowly. “We always push ourselves and each other, wanting to be the best. But this special training program, and the way they seem to have purposely pitted the members of the same platoon against each other, isn’t something I’ve ever seen before. So, no, that’s not what being a SEAL is like.”
“Okay. Then tell me what it is like. Why do you love being a SEAL?”
From her earnest expression, it was clear that she had more than just a casual interest in his answer. If she understood what being a SEAL meant to him, then maybe she’d be more open to giving them a chance.
“The SEALs are like a second family to me,” he said simply. “A family that will walk through a firefight for you and always have your back in the very worst moments. Yeah, I know what I said about that special training and how it’s causing some division in one of our platoons, but I can promise you, if something happened and those guys who got chosen for that program needed help, the other guys would drop everything to help them. And when Teammates have a significant other, she becomes part of our extended family.”
“Wow,” Talia said, her voice tinged with sadness. “I don’t think I’ve ever experienced what it means to be part of that kind of family—ever.”
Lennox wanted to delve into what Talia had meant by that but was interrupted as their server appeared with their soup. It smelled delicious and he appreciated the bowls of extra cheese and tortilla strips that the man brought with him. Spicy and a little sweet at the same time, it tasted scrumptious too. He was glad Talia had ordered it or he might have skipped over the soup selections completely.
They ate in silence for a few moments, but soon enough, Lennox’s curiosity got the best of him, and he decided to pick up the conversation where it left off before their soup had arrived.
“I get the feeling that your family isn’t close,” he said, then added, “If it’s something you’d rather not talk about, I understand.”
Talia took another spoonful of soup, her movements slow and careful, like she was trying to come up with a way to answer that. Or maybe not answer at all. But then she gently touched her lips with a napkin and looked at him.
“I told you that my father travels a lot for his job, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, to say he was away a lot would be an understatement. Most of the time, he was gone way more than he was home,” she continued. “I remember my senior year in high school was the worst. He left to deal with a manufacturing issue in China and we didn’t see him again until the week before school ended. And, after all that time, he still managed to miss my graduation. My mom was so used to it that she never said a word to him, and neither did I. Because that’s simply the way it is with my father.”
Lennox let out a breath. “I’m not even sure what to say about that.” Well, he knew what he wanted to say. That her dad sounded like a complete jackass. But he probably shouldn’t say that out loud. “When we were at Legoland, you mentioned your brothers are all about their jobs too. I assume they got that from your dad?”
They ended up talking about her three brothers as they finished their soup and the waiter brought out their entrees, a second beer for Lennox, and a refill of Talia’s wine. She laughed as she shared some of her brothers’ antics when they were younger, but it was obvious that they weren’t nearly as close now that they were adults and all married to their jobs.
Talia’s unwillingness to date him suddenly made much more sense.
“Now, I get why you didn’t want to go out with me.”
He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words out loud until Talia looked up sharply from her plate.
“What?”
“You didn’t want to date me because you think I’m always going to be gone,” he said quietly. “You can’t help but compare me to your father and your brothers.”
Talia’s shoulders sagged. “Can you blame me? Growing up, I saw what being married to a man who loved his work more than he ever loved his family did to my mother. Why would I want to put myself through that?”
Lennox didn’t say anything. Talia had a good point. Why would any woman want to get involved with a Navy SEAL? Much less one who’d had the life experiences Talia had.
He nodded, slowly taking another bite of his burrito as he tried to figure out how to respond. Because if he didn’t, he might as well pay for their dinner, get Talia an Uber, and call it a night.
“I understand why you have good reason to avoid getting romantically involved with someone in my line of work,” he finally said. “But it makes me wonder why you came to dinner with me if your mind is already made up.”
At his rather blunt assessment of the situation, Talia looked down at her plate, using her fork to push the pico de gallo around on her plate that had come with the taco.
“Because I’m conflicted,” she said softly. “I intended to keep my distance from you but the more time I spent around you, the harder it was to remember why I wanted to stay away in the first place.”
“Okay…wow.” Lennox felt a grin spread across his face. “So, you’re telling me there’s a chance? Even if it’s infinitesimal, I’ll still take it.”
She lifted her gaze to look at him. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why?”
“I mean, you’re a handsome guy with a job that I have no doubt lots of women find cool. You could have almost anyone you wanted. Why would you want to date a mousy nanny who doesn’t have her own place or even a car, and whose biggest dream is to become an elementary school teacher?”
Lennox stopped eating to stare at her. How could she have such a skewed view of herself?
“First, let me set one thing straight,” he said firmly. “You, Talia Holland, are miles away from being just a mousy nanny. You’re beautiful, caring, brave, intriguing, and captivating. And as far as dreaming of being a schoolteacher, there are far worse dreams to have. So, yeah, I want to date you. And while I have no idea where any of this might go I’m willing to put in the effort to try and find out. But none of that matters if you’re not willing to do the same.”
Taking a deep breath, Lennox went back to eating his burrito. It was delicious. He’d lost his appetite though. Talia was the first woman he’d ever been seriously interested in, but it was clear this wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m scared,” Talia said suddenly.
He glanced up to see her regarding him almost warily.
“You don’t need to be scared,” he said, fighting the urge to reach across the table and take her hand in his. “I’ll still help you find Anna and get to the bottom of whatever Keller is doing with Bogdan and McDaniel. We don’t have to see each other in any kind of romantic sense for me to do that.”
“That isn’t what I meant.” Talia frowned. “I never doubted that you’d help me.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I meant that I’m scared at the idea of letting you get close enough to hurt me. Or maybe it might be better to say that I’m scared of letting myself get close enough to you that I’ll end up being hurt. Unfortunately, no matter how scared I am, I want to be with you.”
Lennox’s head spun from how many times this conversation had changed directions in the last few minutes. “You do?”
She nodded. “ That’s why I came to dinner. To see if there’s any way it could work between us.”
“And is there?” he asked, starting to feel hope where there’d been none only a moment ago.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’m willing to try. If you are.”
With impeccable timing, their server chose that moment to appear, the smile on his face momentarily dropping away when he noticed that neither of them had finished their dinners.
“I hope there was nothing wrong with your food?” he asked. “I can bring out something else if you like. No charge.”
Lennox didn’t answer, instead gazing at Talia, wondering what she wanted to do now that they’d both laid their feelings out on the table.
“The food was wonderful,” she said, giving the man a disarming smile. “We simply wanted to save room for dessert.”
She glanced at Lennox with a questioning look. He nodded in answer, thrilled at any excuse that’d allow him to keep the date going.
They ordered a basket of vanilla cream churros served with a side of chocolate dipping sauce as well as coffee. The server threw a second basket in for free, apparently still worried they hadn’t liked dinner even after they’d asked him to box it up to go.
Talia glanced at Lennox as she dipped one of the churros in chocolate. “You said something about having five sisters, along with fourteen nieces and nephews. Tell me about them.”
And just like that, they were talking, and it was so damn easy that it was difficult to believe they’d ever had a problem to begin with.